WAR IN THE GULF: ISRAEL

WAR IN THE GULF: ISRAEL; Missiles Provoke Debate in Tel Aviv: Is It a Patriotic Duty to Stay in City?

By JOEL BRINKLEY, Special to The New York Times

Published: January 29, 1991

TEL AVIV, Jan. 28—
For dozens of Israelis jostling in line outside the El Al airline office today, gas-mask boxes bouncing at their sides, the under-the-breath curses were not reserved only for Saddam Hussein, who has rained terror and death on this city for the last 12 days.

No, many of these people waiting desperately to book seats out of town saved their angriest words for Tel Aviv's longtime Mayor, Shlomo Lahat, who initiated a swelling national debate when he lashed out all those who have fled the city. He called them "deserters" and said all of them should move back right away.

"He has no right," 34-year-old France Lebeenadan said after waiting more than an hour just to get inside the El Al office door for a booking to Paris. "It's stupid. I'm not hysterical, but I feel a responsibility for my children."

"This is my country; I love my country," said Dali Saragossi, who was waiting to make bookings to New York for her two teen-age children. "One of the missiles fell very near our house. It makes me very sad, but what are we to do? Their father lives in New York, and he wants them with him now." 'Trying to Find Cover'

"We're afraid," said her son David, who is 13. "We don't want to die. We're just trying to find cover."

As if to reinforce the boy's concerns, Iraq fired another missile with a conventional warhead at Tel Aviv tonight, the seventh attack in 12 days. But this time the army said the Scud was defective and disintegrated as it fell back to earth. No one was hurt, and there was no property damage. The missile had fallen apart even before any Patriot air-defense missiles could be fired at it.

The Mayor's remarks, and those of other prominent Israelis who share his views, set off a broad round of national soul-searching about how Israelis should respond to the continuing missile threat: Are the people who stay in Tel Aviv brave, defiant Jews who are showing Saddam Hussein they can not be cowed?

Or are they fools, willfully putting themselves and their children in mortal danger, even though they have a clear choice?

For many people, memories of World War II lie just behind the immediate debate. The threat of attack with poisonous gas makes that memory seem even more relevant. And so several people quoted in the local press today said anyone who stays in Tel Aviv is being as shortsighted as the Jews who stayed in Germany in the late 1930's.

But Mayor Lahat says he is only being practical. 'It Might Happen Here'

"Look, it's important to stay, and I want to be very clear about this issue," he said today. "Yes, it's very dangerous to be in Tel Aviv. So people are leaving to other cities. Maybe tomorrow it will be dangerous in the whole country, and so they will leave the country. And I'm not speaking from a theoretical point of view. It might happen here."

Aviva Marks, an actress who lives in Tel Aviv, agrees and draws her own comparison to World War II.

"The way that Hitler knew that if he could break London, he could win the war, well that's obviously Saddam's intention. Tel Aviv is the heart of the country. If Saddam Hussein thinks it's important enough to get us, then it's important enough for us to stay here."

Still, tens of thousands leave the city each night, clogging the highways as they move to hotels in Jerusalem, Beersheba or Eilat. 'People Under Stress'

"We have about 100 rooms filled" with people from Tel Aviv, said Omri Krongold, deputy manager of Jerusalem's Sheraton-Plaza Hotel. "They're not tourists. They're people under stress. It's very strange to work with them. They don't go to the restaurants. Ninety percent stay in the hotel. They stay in their rooms and watch TV."

Others leave Israel altogether. At the El Al office, a spokesman for the airline, Nachman Kleiman, said: "We're not in a panic, but we've added flights, and we're using bigger planes." El Al is now the only airline regularly flying in and out of Israel, and it carried 3,200 people away on Sunday.

"There's a waiting list for every flight," Mr. Kleiman added. In fact, callers asking for a booking to New York today were told there were no seats available before Feb. 10.

Tonight, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir weighed in with his own opinion about that.

"I wouldn't put on trial those who move from one city to another in Israel," he said. "There's no shame in that. But I would of course condemn those who leave the country."

Asa Kasher, a professor of philosophy at Tel Aviv University, represents a large body of public opinion when he says he is staying in town but doesn't blame anyone who chooses to leave. 'My Personal Decision'

"I think it is a matter of personal decision," he said. "It is my personal decision to stay. I am a full-fledged Israeli, born here, raised here and everything of importance to me in my life happened to me here, and I'm not going to turn myself into a refugee under any condition.

"On the other hand," he added, "it is a personal decision and I can understand if everyone else does something else. A mayor is in no position to give advice on matters of life and death to citizens."

Gideon Samet, a columnist in the daily newspaper Haaretz, ridiculed the Mayor's notion that a sense of national duty should compel people to remain in town.

"It won't take much now so that soon there's a 'revolutionary guard' that will start patrolling Tel Aviv's streets," he wrote. "They'll hang lists on tree trunks of those who've left." Aftermath of Attack

But the larger philosophical arguments were irrelevant to many of the people standing in line at the El Al office. Like most everyone else in the country, they watched television last Tuesday night, just after missiles killed one person and wounded more than 50 in Tel Aviv.

Just after the attack, the fifth one to come at night, a young mother was filmed, sobbing as she stood before her ruined home, telling the television reporter that when the air raid sirens had sounded, her baby daughter had told her: "'Mommy, don't die. Wait, so I can die with you."'

This afternoon, a woman interviewed by Israeli television outside the El Al office said she was leaving for Canada "because we are afraid. Aren't you afraid?"

But look around, the television reporter responded. It looks safe here in town now.

"Now, yes -- during the daytime," she answered. "But what about at night?"

Photo: Carrying gas masks, Israelis waited in line yesterday at the El Al airlines office in Tel Aviv to purchase tickets for flights out of Israel. The city's mayor, Shlomo Lahat, and others have criticized those who have fled. (Micha Bar-Am/The New York Times)